


These Remain

by GooseWhiskers



Series: Hey Look, Blue Soup! [8]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: F/M, Ficlet, Friendship/Love, Hope, References to Depression, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-27
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2020-10-29 04:50:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20790923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GooseWhiskers/pseuds/GooseWhiskers
Summary: Nate considers the pain he's felt since waking up in the Wasteland, finding a reason to believe in himself despite everything that's happened. A plucky reporter has rubbed off on him. And he's definitely fallen in love.





	These Remain

**Author's Note:**

> I posted this back on my [tumblr](https://lookbluesoup.tumblr.com/post/187390438536/these-remain) back in August, figured I might as well share here too! c: Enjoy some insomnia-fueled FEELINGS. I have a whole lot

The world was empty. And the emptiness howled. Not like wolves, deep and terrible and echoing. Not like nightmares, gruesome and skin-prickling. Emptiness howled like the vacuum of space, or the forgotten cry of a dead man. It was hoarse. It hollowed you out inside. Left you with nothing but bones, withered, ghoulish. 

For a long time there had been nothing beautiful about the world. Only a deeply buried dread which could never be suffocated. It gnawed with rotten teeth at Nate’s heart from beneath, slow but unending, eager to devour him but knowing there was no rush, because he would not fight it and he could not run, and so the end was inevitable.

Or would’ve been. Except for _her._ Piper came tramping up the other side of the hill, brambles snatching at her heels. The smile lighting Nate’s features at her appearance was automatic, predictable as a sunrise. She smiled back, their joy tethered to one another’s presence in much the same way of moons and planets.

Sorrow still grasped him sometimes. Enough to bring him to his knees. But she was always there to help lift him back up again. Slowly he’d come to realize that _one Sacred Thing_ had survived the End of the World… And if Love could exist, if he could find it in himself after everything else was taken away, that’d meant other holiness must be possible to resurrect, too.

Faith. He had faith in things unseen again. He remembered beauty could endure beyond surface or circumstance. It was the second sacrament.

Warmth returned to Nate’s eyes. And then Hope. Hope which had waited patiently to be called, when every other virtue fled the earth to leave only vices behind.

All of them, because one pushy reporter saw something worthwhile when she looked in his direction. He met Piper halfway, eager for her embrace. She told him a story, tugged him to follow, smiled that smile. The creature bleeding Nate dry retreated from his chest, and for the first time in a long time he no longer felt weighed down by the absence of things.


End file.
